I think you would be lying to yourself if you said you liked them all.

Then I am lying to myself...

No really, I can say I do like every one of them. Solo and band. Yes, there are some that I like less.

I am glad you were not insulted by what I said, as I think you know that was not my intention. I know that you can be critical and that is good. If we all said, "Oh The Beatles are wonderful" there would be less to talk about. I have been a fan for really more than 30 years and a die-hard serious fan for over 25 years. I have learned and forgotten and re-learned more than most "fans" too. All my friends know me as a "Beatles expert". They have all tried, unsuccessfully, to stump me. If there was a Beatles "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" they would all have me on their list to call.

The list of Beatles people I have met is long. My collection is incredible (drives my wife crazy). Enough bragging about myself. I am just glad to be here.

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And now you've changed your mind, I see no reason to change mine --Lennon/McCartney

partly disagree on LTS mate, Ive never been a big fan of the song itself but surely this is one where the Beatles showed what a truly awesome band they were, Pauls vocal is astoundingly brilliant, as is the rest of the band, I can only dream about being able to sing like that.........both solo's imo work very well and george excells here, he gets into the groove very well, Ringo is awesome and I love the piano......the whole thing about it is this shows how well they could rock 10/10 boys !!

Could The Stones have done this, could Jagger have sung it ?..............no f-ckin way

note...curiously on the bbc version george sucks big time

I believe Long Tall Sally was done in just one take. Which makes it even better.

wow-just come across this thread,todd,and not had much time to read a lot of replies and comments but there is a lot of information here,well done mate!!so i am going to comment on just a couple of things for the 'off'.1.)'yes it is' is my favourite ever beatle track,just beautiful,even georges' unsure guitar.perfect,lovely melody.2.)i always thought it was e.c playing the guitar solo on 'i'd have you anytime'.don't ask me why though,i am only guessing,i suppose.3.)i also do not get why e.c's playing on 'gently weeps' gets so much praise.quite ordinary,really.

keep up this fantatic work todd-you are a true fan and you give me confidence to 'object' to some of the tunes that have never really been my favourites but i have never dared to say outloud.

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......."but tonight,i just wanna stay in,and be with you"..............

Totally agree - I do love the finished full-band version, but that solo acoustic demo by George is just amazing.

With regards to the Clapton solo, I don't think George was still at the stage where he could play with that sort of feeling, and the Clapton guitar part really lifts the song a lot. It isn't a complex part in terms of what notes are played, but he gets a lot of feeling and expression into it, and that's what really sets a great guitar player apart from a good one. I can play the solo note for note but it still sounds nothing like Clapton's one - which is probably why he's rich and famous and I'm not Anyway, within a few years George would be getting that same level of emotion into his playing, but in 1968 he still wasn't quite up there with Clapton.

okpete best version:pete starts this out with a kind of shuffling country beat that confirms what i've always known about love me do . . it's a country western cowboy type songthen at the one minute mark (someone to love...) pete tries to switch it up and play offbeats -> doesn't work and the band doesn't follow his lead - pete doesn't go through with what he's started - total BALKback to verse and pete has lost the shuffle. the structure of the song is shot

ringo versionringo is steady on drums like a donkey getting you over a hill . . but this version is terrible -i only kno the album versionand its not because of ringo vs andywhite...... it's john and paul's performance. the stops aren't crisp, it drags, the handclaps.... i get what tkitna was saying now-the andy white version is a 'magical take'. a keeper ! . . better harmonies, better harmonica, better production . . . . . and yeah, his drumming hits the mark

It's been a while since I heard the Pete Best version. I'd forgotten how bad it is - you can see why George Martin had no confidence in him coz he's all over the place. I don't know when the song was written - is this something Pete would have played many times or was the song fairly new to him? Either way, that version with him playing is awful. And it does start out totally like a C&W song, yes. Very Frank Ifield. Surprised they didn't get a bit of yodelling in there for good measure!

Yep - the Ringo drums version is indeed let down by John and Paul's performance rather than Ringo's. I wouldn't say Andy White is all that much better than Ringo, to be fair to Mr Starr, but like you say the take with Andy White playing drums and Ringo on tambourine is by far the best of the three in terms of the finished product. The Ringo drums version seems very lame in comparison. Surprising that it ever got to #17 in the charts

wow-just come across this thread,todd,and not had much time to read a lot of replies and comments but there is a lot of information here,well done mate!!so i am going to comment on just a couple of things for the 'off'.1.)'yes it is' is my favourite ever beatle track,just beautiful,even georges' unsure guitar.perfect,lovely melody.2.)i always thought it was e.c playing the guitar solo on 'i'd have you anytime'.don't ask me why though,i am only guessing,i suppose.3.)i also do not get why e.c's playing on 'gently weeps' gets so much praise.quite ordinary,really.

keep up this fantatic work todd-you are a true fan and you give me confidence to 'object' to some of the tunes that have never really been my favourites but i have never dared to say outloud.

Thanks GO. Glad you came across this thread. I want your input being that your a fellow drummer and all.

nimrod

If we all said, "Oh The Beatles are wonderful" there would be less to talk about. I have been a fan for really more than 30 years and a die-hard serious fan for over 25 years. I have learned and forgotten and re-learned more than most "fans" too. All my friends know me as a "Beatles expert". They have all tried, unsuccessfully, to stump me. If there was a Beatles "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" they would all have me on their list to call.

The list of Beatles people I have met is long. My collection is incredible (drives my wife crazy). Enough bragging about myself. I am just glad to be here.

you sound like my kinda guy Gary

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nimrod

With regards to the Clapton solo, I don't think George was still at the stage where he could play with that sort of feeling, and the Clapton guitar part really lifts the song a lot. It isn't a complex part in terms of what notes are played, but he gets a lot of feeling and expression into it, and that's what really sets a great guitar player apart from a good one.

totally agree peter, I too can play the solo but the way clappers played it was IMO true great musicianship, there are no 16th or even 8th notes but the finger vibrato is sublime, he really does make the guitar weep , or it sounds like that, its a sad sound, I believe he didnt get much time to practise before the session and really just came up with it, full credit to clapton, he didnt try to do anything flash, he didnt try to dominate the session, just a really tastefull solo, perfect for the song.........technically quite simple but dripping in emotion.

i totally love this song, sure it's simple, sure it's skimpy, but it's got a beat, the lyrics are upbeat, it sounds like a skiffle mutant, but you can't get around the country-western flavor to the tune. lennons harmonica adds bounce and another dimension to the song. it is bluesy to the core. it gets the job done.

according to lewisohn : "Paul McCartney said: "Love Me Do was us trying to do the blues. It came out whiter because it always does. We're white and we were just young Liverpool musicians. We didn't have any finesse to be able to actually sound black. But Love Me Do was probably the first bluesy thing we tried to do.""

hi glass onion for me, it's the way he bends those notes around each other and makes the guitar talk and makes it all fit together.

yeah,no doubt eric is a special special player.i concede that the playing on gently weeps is good,despite me saying it's nothing special.to be honest i cannot imagine anything else on there in it's place.

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......."but tonight,i just wanna stay in,and be with you"..............

yeah,no doubt eric is a special special player.i concede that the playing on gently weeps is good,despite me saying it's nothing special.to be honest i cannot imagine anything else on there in it's place.

same here. i thought it was george for the longest time, then i thought it was perhaps paul or pehaps john or perhaps they were trading licks ala the end on abbey road. but really none of them play like that.

Actually the Andy White version (September 11) does have a tambourine, since Ringo played it. The version with Ringo on drums (September 4) does not have the tambourine. The Ringo version with no tambourine was released in the first editions of the single (and it's the version included in the Past Masters) and the Andy White version (with tambourine) is on Please Please Me album.

Actually the Andy White version (September 11) does have a tambourine, since Ringo played it. The version with Ringo on drums (September 4) does not have the tambourine. The Ringo version with no tambourine was released in the first editions of the single (and it's the version included in the Past Masters) and the Andy White version (with tambourine) is on Please Please Me album.

totally agree peter, I too can play the solo but the way clappers played it was IMO true great musicianship

I'm sure if I were to hear both of your While My Guitar Gently Weeps solos, they would sound wonderful especially if you put your emotions into it. I remember when I took blues guitar lessons from Ian Buchanan, himself a student of Blind Gary Davis and Brownie McGhee, I once brought along my Wheels Of Fire LP and played Crossroads for him. "That's Crossroad Blues" he said and proceeded to play it in the traditional Delta Blues style. Then he asked me to play rhythm while he played lead Eric Clapton style. He really got into it and I was in awe. Then he stopped and apologized for not being a good rock guitarist. I wish I taped that lesson that evening.

But that's the beauty of guitar or any instrument you can express your feelings with. Eric Clapton played a wonderful solo on WMGGW, nothing flash or domineering as you said nimrod, but just appropriate for George Harrison's song.

7. This Boy – I never really listened closely to this song before because I never liked it well enough to care. Ringo’s double time on the hats is nice. I wish there was no electric guitar in this song. Acoustic only would have been my choice. I don’t like the tone of the electric guitar. George and Paul’s backup vocals are tight and top notch. 1:27 mark you can hear the obvious studio break. The guitar at the end sounds stupid and shouldn’t have been there.

I've always noted that studio break. I don't know if that was intended, I guess it was, but it sounds interesting. That trick was later used by several artists during the psychedelic years when they wanted to make an abrupt change.